Exploring the real color wheel in Photoshop

In my last tutorial, we explored the RYB Color Wheel by Johannes Itten. Although it is taught in most schools today, it’s not exactly designer-friendly. The problem is that the complementary colors on the RYB Color Wheel mixes hues of Brown instead of Gray.

The Real Color Wheel, by Don Jusko, mixes hues of Gray and it’s important that we understand it as much as the RYB Color Wheel — let’s explore it in Photoshop.

Exploring HSB-Values

Open the Color Dialog in Photoshop, or your preferred program, and take a look at the HSB-values:

(H)ue

(S)aturation

(B)rightness

With these three values you can change the color (Hue), the tints (Saturation) and finally the shades (Brightness).

First, let’s play around with the hues. As we saw before, Johannes Itten uses RYB (red/yellow/blue) as Primary colors. Since the wheel is 360° and we want to find its three primary colors, we can do simple math: 360/3= 120°. This is the amount in which the colors are spaced apart from each other.

Although it is close, it is NOT the same as the RYB Color Wheel. For example, on the RYB Color Wheel, the complementary color of Red is Green. On the New Color Wheel the complementary of Red is Cyan — this color wheel is much more artist-friendly:

Cyan is the complementary of Red

Magenta is the complementary of Green

Yellow is the complementary of Blue

Finding Other Complementary Colors

Since Complementary colors are opposite from each other on the Color Wheel, you have to add or subtract 180° (360/2) to any given hue value. As we stated above, the complementary of 0° (Red) is 180° (Cyan).

Although, this is not a difficult technique, I’m quite a lazy guy and prefer to use my time with designing and not math, so I use a simple trick in Photoshop. Choose Image > Adjustments > Invert to invert the color(s) from your selected layer. Whatever color percentage you have on that layer will be swapped 180° around to it’s complementary color.

And when I’m REALLY lazy , I use CMD+I to get the same results even quicker. 😉

Creating Monochromatic Color Schemes

Now, I will explain how you can find a Monochromatic color schemes without the help of any third party tools. I have chosen a random hue value of 83° which is some kind of lime color:

You can drag the small circle to the left or right to create tints (adding white) of this color. Or you can simply adjust the Saturation percentage.

If you move the small circle up and down, you control the shade values (adding black). Or you can adjust the Brightness percentage.

Now you have a simple Monochromatic color scheme:

Creating Triad Color Schemes

I will start with my amazing lime color (83° hue). Actually we already created one triad when we explored the Primary colors because remember, a triad is colors that are 120° apart.

As you can see, I have added 120° to 83° to get this Triad:

Now you know how to quickly create a color scheme from any hue.

It’s Your Turn to Explore!

After using these color tips, you will start to see your designs in a totally new light. For example, you’ve learned about Monocromatic and Complementary color schemes, so why not combine them into one new color scheme? 🙂 Lets give it a try.

We will use our lime color as the base color. Again, it’s defined as:

H: 83°

S: 100°

B: 100°

From this base color we will find it’s Complementary color. Add 180° to the hue value 83° and you will get 263°. This will give you a Purple hue.

Then, create a tint and a shade of the Complementary Purple. This is my result:

You can really do a lot by combining different color schemes. Now the power is in your mouse… use it wisely! 🙂

Any questions or suggestions about color? Please post it in the comments.